


And I Had You In My Grasp

by ThisCatastrophe



Series: Burnt Offerings [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Foiled Confessions, Forbidden Love, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 14:07:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14875202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisCatastrophe/pseuds/ThisCatastrophe
Summary: Every strong shinobi has a weakness. Every deadly pair slips up. Even Hidan and Kakuzu.(Hidan and Kakuzu take a new assignment and find out some things about themselves. A nice feelings interlude between porn scenes.)





	And I Had You In My Grasp

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys. This one was commissioned by Khaos Keeper over on tumblr. Really fun piece to work on, and I'm glad it went the way it did! 
> 
> Enjoy. Commissions are still open!

The road to the far east had been long and hard.

Apparently, some foreign rumor mill mentioned a bizzare beast on one of the extant islands of the Land of the Sea; some spoke of tails, numbering between seven and four in each new tale, and others spoke of multiple heads. But all mentioned a capacity for sealing. Such rumors warrant investigation.

After what seemed like hours of arguing, Kakuzu begrudgingly agreed to Pain’s routing to the Sea islands, which took the immortal duo straight through Fire country, distressingly close to Konoha itself and straight through Tanzaku Quarters, where off-duty Leaf shinobi always seemed to crawl out of every corner store and back alley. Even before they left, the route was a weight on their minds; Hidan hadn’t seen Kakuzu so on-edge since long before their first tryst and he wasn’t faring much better, either, to be honest.

And that route and those stresses meant fights. Many, many fights against surprisingly competent shinobi. 

It had to have been the first one’s fault. The minute they set foot in the Land of Fire, Kakuzu spotted a cell of shinobi: three young nin and their commander, fresh faced, round cheeks of children and clean skin that spoke of comfort, families at home with warm, loving arms.

Perfect. Perfect, soft-handed sacrifices.

And they were. Until Hidan, in the middle of his first ritual, noticed that one corpse was gone.

Hours later, Kakuzu mentioned that he’d heard of a family in Konoha whose kekkai genkai allowed them to play dead. What a useless ability, he thought, until just now. Until they saw the disappearing rustle of leaves, knowing they could never catch up to the escaped genin.

From then on, they were sharp-eyed. Nearly every day was a different wave of Konoha-nin, searching the forests for the red-cloud-cloaked intruders. Some nights they watched patrols as they scraped too close to hiding spots. Other nights they woke suddenly mere moments before attack.

Hidan’s skin looked like a map, boundaries drawn in skin-seam, joined by careful black stitching and bandages that held everything in place. He was hasty, leaping jubilant into battle. Then it was with anger. Then with fear.

Kakuzu was dying.

Day three of the trip into Fire country. The water mask shatters to bits around its heart, speared by a long, thin sword, the final shot of its departed owner. Hidan and Kakuzu crush the mask’s shards to bits underfoot until it is a patch of white dust on the dirt road.

Day seven. The wind mask splits and explodes thanks to a medical-nin. A tiny bit spears Hidan in the arm and he is sure to let the medic bleed out as painfully as he can.

Day eight. Too soon. The lightning mask puts up a good fight, and so does Kakuzu. Hidan, dismembered and thrown into the bushes in pieces, can only watch as Kakuzu paints the ground red with the latest raiding party, but not before the strange ink-black construct falls face first, breaking the mask beneath it.

Day twelve. Hidan hasn’t slept since day nine. How many masks does Kakuzu own? He has a hazy memory of his hands catching on the edges of masks. Four, the last time he was present enough to count. But there are empty spaces. Was one shattered when he wasn’t watching?

It’s his own fault. It’s his own fault that the Konoha-nin catch up to them; really, if he was more awake, he would have kept Kakuzu safe, but he falls behind on the road and lets himself, for simply a moment too long, yawn. And from the trees descends an ANBU team, fox masks eggshell white, onto Kakuzu’s shoulders. 

He’s on them in a second, but it’s too late, and there’s a naginata breaking through Kakuzu’s cloak.

It’s a bloodbath. 

Someone’s intestines get strung over a tree. Damn, some other day he’d be worried that there won’t be and bodies to sacrifice later—surely Jashin wants one, considering his terrible luck lately, but that can’t happen at the moment. His hands are ice cold and his head is numb and his throat burns. 

Kakuzu. Kakuzu. Kakuzu. The name repeats on a desperate loop. A torso splits from its legs and explodes into a red arch. Are there shinobi left, or are they just dismembered bodies? Where do the dead begin and the living end? Why can’t he see anything?

Unforgivable. Unforgivable that Kakuzu isn’t helping him. Unforgivable that someone’s naginata speared him through the heart, maybe the only one. Why have they both been so weak, so helpless lately? Why does he take risks that he never used to make? Why do his hands shake on the grips of his weapon like he’s just a little boy again, too small for the weight of such a huge blade? And why does Kakuzu have to go and get his hearts destroyed when Hidan’s the perfect punching bag?

Hidan only stops when his scythe lodges in a tree, wedged tight, giving him enough time to notice that all the Leaf shinobi are long dead.

It makes him sick, but he looks back at Kakuzu. How many masks did he have? One, two, three gone this week alone. How many? How many?

And how long has it been since he cried like this? Hidan can’t tell if Kakuzu’s moving or not—the air is deadly still, but his vision swims through fat salty tears that spring too fast, painful in their genesis, to his eyes. 

Finally, Kakuzu rises, looking weaker than he ever has in Hidan’s memory.

Hidan sobs.

It’s a thick and ugly cry, and his face turns red in blotches that spread from his cheeks into his throat, and the tears spill not in tantalizing paths but in little trails that seep into dry skin as he stumbles forward to fall into Kakuzu’s lap, straddling his thighs. His fists curl up and he pounds them against Kakuzu’s chest, the wrong way, as if he’s not an international criminal but a scared, hurt child, both hands striking at once, no rhythm and no target except the broad, bloodied torso before him.

“Fuck you! _Fuck you_ , old man! Don’t you _dare_ fuckin’ leave me like that! I thought you were gone—don’t you _ever_ make me think you’re dead again!”

“Hidan,” Kakuzu scolds, rasping. “Hidan— _Hidan_.” He grabs for the hands, wrestles them into a hold, moves them away from his drawn face and into the air where they won’t strike out worthlessly. “Stop hitting me. What’s _wrong_ with you?”

Kakuzu’s voice is sharp, knife sharp, cutting in a way that Hidan isn’t ready for, and his head hangs while another deep sob quivers in his ribcage. He hangs heavy from the wrists, captured, but he presses forward in Kakuzu’s lap anyway, trying to get closer.

“This isn’t what I asked for,” he chokes.

“Isn’t—” Kakuzu tilts his head down to look at Hidan, redfaced and weeping, dripping salt water onto his bloodstained clothes. “What did you ask for? Hidan, you didn’t ask me for anything, what are you talking about?” The answer comes too slowly and he starts again: “The hell—”

“Jashin,” Hidan murmurs. His head tips back, sideways, and the tears cut new paths on dry skin. “Fuck. I begged him for this, for—” He sobs again and crawls in closer, shoulders pushing back painfully as they advance past his trapped hands. “—for you to get closer to me.”

Kakuzu only stares.

And Hidan continues. “But I didn’t—I never asked for… _Shit_ , this isn’t a gift. What did I do to deserve this?”

Kakuzu releases his grip on Hidan’s wrists and lets his own hands fall to the ground, leaden. A tiny sliver of something begs him to ask questions, but something much larger swallows it up, reminds him how dangerous questions can be.

“Bastard,” Hidan gutters.

Since the only onlookers are smeared across the road and into the forest canopy, Kakuzu lets Hidan cry into his shirt while he crumbles the final broken mask into dust.

\--

A tiny coastal town posts a sign against shinobi. It’s a safe part of the region, too far from anything important to matter in any circle but its own, and though the attacks have blessedly ceased since the last group was thrashed to bits, they step into the city gates anyway, hiding their headbands.

At the port office, a handwritten sign lists the outgoing and incoming barges, which ferry raw materials across the waters to and from the Land of Water. Strong Fire country lumber going out, flexible Water country reeds coming in. The most expensive thing to cross the water here is the barge itself.

Kakuzu reads the time table carefully, weighing options. The departures tonight are smaller ships; less crew presence, sure, but fewer places to hide aboard the ship. He checks the day planner in the pocket of his ledger while Hidan stares at the waves, morose.

They settle on an early-morning barge, a huge, lumbering thing loaded down with cheap, early pine. It’s a family vessel, according to the name—the _Yamamoto Skimmer_ , as if such an old and boxy thing would skim over anything at all—and the safest bet they have. Kakuzu suggests that they rest in the woods on the city’s outskirts rather than show their faces in the run-down inn, and Hidan follows him without a word.

All that’s left of their travel gear is an oilskin, which they drape over an abandoned cable that once separated the woods from an open field. It keeps out the damp well enough, and Kakuzu spreads out a bundle of dry grass to pad the lumpy ground before curling into the overhang, book in hand for a well-deserved quiet evening.

Hours later, long after nightfall, Hidan speaks for the first time all day. “My faith is being tested,” he murmurs at the damp coastal forest.

From his place beside Hidan, Kakuzu looks up. The book he’s reading closes slowly, softly, and he rises from his repose to sit rigid beside his partner, careful not to knock down their faint little candle. “You think so,” he says, commenting rather than questioning.

“I _know_ so. Jashin wants to measure my devotion.” Hidan rests his chin on the palm of one hand as he frowns at the monsoon-damp trees, low branched and sweeping against the untamed wild grass. “I was given a gift that contained a curse. He’s testing my resolve.” He falls silent in a long pause, and the sound of owls swooping low over the marshes fills the space. “And I don’t know if he cursed you, too, but… if he did, we’re in trouble, old man.”

“That’s what you get for chasing after the sun, brat.” Kakuzu draws a knee up and folds his arm across it, brushing a few damp blades of grass from his worn trousers.

Hidan gives him a scowling look. “Chasing the—”

“—it’s an old story,” Kakuzu breaks in. “I heard it a long time ago. Some mission in Rock country, I think.” He reaches out and plucks a cluster of off-white flowers, tiny and delicate despite their prolific stalks, spreading thick before their shelter. “Some old man who owned the Cliffside Inn told me about a giant who wanted to catch the sun.” Between his fingers, the flowers spin quickly, then stop abruptly, throwing minute petals onto Hidan’s bare forearm. “He followed the sun from east to west and sucked up all the rivers in Rock country in the chase.”

“Yeah, well,” Hidan says, punctuating his words with gentle brushes, scattering the petals. “We’re going west to east, so—”

“—the _point_ , Hidan, is that the giant died.”

Again, silence. The distant owls have moved on, chasing prey that hides farther inland. Hidan scowls and reaches out to pluck a cluster of flowers for himself. “So you’re saying I’m the giant and you’re the sun?”

“We could both be the sun.”

“You’re not making much sense.”

“You’re just pretending not to understand.”

Conditioned by fear, they watch the silent night until even the latest animals stop moving. Hidan plucks individual clusters of cream-white flowers, painstakingly removing every tiny petal, desperate to move his hands. Kakuzu only stares into the dark.

In the silent pre-dawn, one after the other, they finally recline. No enemies have chased them this far. It’s too much to hope that the trouble is over; Hidan knows that Jashin does not give easy tests.

But he lies awake for just one more long moment, listening to Kakuzu’s even, steady breathing nearby, and he allows himself a guilty little happiness, knowing he’s landed a single, fleeting touch on the sun that evades him.

When that sun rises finally, the camp is abandoned, leaving behind only flattened wild grass and the faint scent of very old books.


End file.
